Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 03:46:15 12/28/99
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On December 28, 1999 at 04:38:07, Ed Schröder wrote: >>Posted by Vincent Diepeveen on December 27, 1999 at 15:48:18: >> >>>At least once a week I receive email in similar wordings. That's of course >>>very nice stuff to read but what puzzles me is Rebel's progress through the >>>years in this respect. >>> >>>I mean this: I am a 1800 player, very bad in tactics but with a positional >>>understanding of 2000, maybe a bit more. How to judge progress in Rebel's >>>positional understanding every time I add new chess knowledge? >> >>Statistically spoken you should not even near to 1500 Ed. >> >>Non actively chess playing people are hugely overestimating their >>chessstrength/insight. >> >>I can't find you at any dutch rating list, >>so my assumption is that you're one of those guys. > >You can be right you also can be wrong. When I was 14-15 years I became >a member of a chess club and left after a few weeks because of all the >smoke (mainly cigars) and never returned to a chess club. I have played >several youth tournaments in The Hague (in the AEGON building) and >from that time is my estimated 1800 elo rating. Let's see. 30-40 Years later nothing is left of course of such a rating. Till around 2200 missing tactics means you lose anyway. >>Working on a chess engine sure doesn't improve playing strength, >>as you let the program solve stuff instead of solving it yourself. > >Maybe this is true for you but it isn't for me. I can certainly say my >positional understanding has improved programming Rebel. My tactical >skills have gone down a lot because of laziness, lack of interest of >course due to the fact I have a program for that, why torture my brain >when a simple mouse click will do the job. I must find the first exception to this. Especially someone who 'feels' he's still 1800 after 30 years. >>If i have worked on diep in the afternoon, then in the evening i play >>like big shit to be objectively measuring what happens... >> >>>Has Rebel improved in playing humans since version 8,9,10 and now Rebel >>>Century? To answer this question precise you have to realize that hardware >>>has improved too during the years and people tend not to play old versions >>>which makes it even more difficult to judge its progress. >> >>Very accurate said. Apart from that another aspect needs not >>to be forgotten: i am used now to fight against crafty at duals >>and misssilicon at a K6-3, and Hossa at its latest hardware. >> >>If i then get against an oldie, i will suddenly do a lot better than >>i would have done in the past. >> >>So where humans have adjusted to the stronger programs, advances in >>theory, and some other things, the program is still showing the same >>performance. > >If I understand you right you say that "comp-comp" is your only criterion >to judge Diep's progress? I did the very same in my early days but changed >that way of testing after 4-5 years. No i didn't say that. Biggest eval bugs are found usual because of human-comp. When humans play for their rating they're deadly accurate in trying to find a way to beat it :) Now in contradiction to rebel diep plays a couple of hundreds games each week against humans. However i must add to this that gross errors though they are in all programs, aren't the only thing you want to solve. > >>>Since times I use the following guide-line to decide which version is best: >>>- test sets (about 1000 positions) 30% as a first impression. >> >>ECM+BK nowadays? > >My database is about 85% positional based positions and 15% are about >tactics. There are about 20-25 ECM positions. Don't know what BK means. So you deny having tuned for BK (position 2... d4d5), and deny knowing wat BK is? Like you never read JICCA, you never read 'computerschaak' and many other magazines? Hard for me to believe! >>>- auto232 results (30%) >>>- my personal impression based on my own style and feelings (40%) this >>>includes the GM challenge games as well. >> >>>How do other programmers decide which version is best? and maybe more >>>important which criteria is involved? > >> >>I test carefully what the evaluation verbosely prints >>in a position where the bugfixes to the patterns applies to. >> >>Positions it played wrong in the past (5000 or something and growing >>each day nearly, but i only pick a few from which i think apply). > >I do the same. And the most worse onces first. > > >>Then it's released to my testers and depending upon their results and my >>findings i fix bugs in it and decide where to expand again. > >You are a reasonable chess player, 2200 I believe. What is your main >criterion to judge a version? What you call 30% feeling is for me actually 100% feeling, as in the end i'm the judge of everything concerning DIEP. I must feel happy with how it plays, not the icc folks. >>When talking about a non-lineair change of search however i feel it's not >>so easy to decide. > >Right, search solves many positional errors. >>Let's take for example last ply pruning. It's easy to make last ply pruning >>such that it does a lot better at testsets. >> >>But does it play better then? > >Not in my opinion. It just scores better. We disagree here. it scores better in blitz. it doesn't play very well in slow games. > >>I find that hard to judge. I have simply thrown all forward pruning >>out of DIEP and feel a lot more happier. It plays a lot better now, >>but has a way lower rating in blitz at single cpu machines at icc, >>the advantage in playing strength can be basically is in my opinion >>because of evaluation bugfixes. > >You are absolutely right about pruning. The main change from Rebel7 to >Rebel8 was a very narrow selective search resulting in deep ply-depth's. I had the impression you also added lazy evaluation to rebel8? >To my surprise the thing topped the SSDF list with +65 (or so) while >Rebel never had been a serious candidate on SSDF. But I also have seen >the other side of the medal, the holes because of selective search pruning >essential moves and losing games because of positional blunders. I changed >selective search a lot since version 8 fixing the holes losing some >ply-depth but I got back a lot more stable Rebel as a result. > > >>>I also am curious on opinions if Rebel Century is clearly better than let's >> >>>say Rebel8 when the subject is playing style which is something different >>>than playing strength (my opinion and view). >> >>I personally feel century is the same engine with a few more tactical >>extensions and a new book. So i see hardly difference, considering that >>tactical testsets like ECM, which were solved very bad by rebel8, do >>not get taken into account in my judgement of engine strength, as i found >>rebel8 already anything but tactical weak. > >Well..... Rebel8 did very well on SSDF. If it was so bad in tactics you can't >enter the SSDF list as no.1 with +65 on no.2. Right when it came out it was tactical the best. However your trick to abort double games with rebel8 is hugely underestimated worldwide, especially if you combine that with a book which in some pathetic side lines which rebel plays well there are a lot of lines int he rebelbook itself. >Maybe you can explain to me why ECM is so important for you? Do you use >all 600/700/800 positions or just a selection? It obviously is more important to you, as new rebel versions suddenly solve ECM positions real soon which rebel8 didn't solve within a minute or 10 at least. Dieps behaviour on ECM hardly has changed. >Ed Vincent
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